Not much time to blog lately. I have been busy tearing down walls and ripping up flooring in my new house. Someone commented that all this destruction seems to be energizing me. It is true that there can be pure joy in raw movement, more restrained passion in the finesse needed for building or rebuilding. But the most energizing thing about destruction is the space it creates for envisioning a different future. While I am prying boards or crumbling plaster, my mind is seeing room for a kitchen, a bigger studio, better flow through the hallway, more storage. In the same way, when I tear or cut into one version of a piece I am working on, I am reordering a pattern that has become too staid, improving the balance in a composition, making a hole to drop in an unexpected element or even creating the occasion for an interesting repair.
I love how the Hindu goddess of destruction, Kali, is pictured with many arms to hold both the weapons - tools of destruction - and trophies. I want to hold several aspects of each piece even in the midst of changes - parts that work, parts that will fall away, parts that work and still will need to go to make way for the new and most especially the parts that I will discover in the midst of the destruction, the line of color exposed by a tear, the niche that can now fit into exposed framing.
I was making a quiche this weekend and thinking about the saying - "You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs." Even as I am holding the perfect smoothness of the egg, I am looking forward to the rich yellow custard surrounding broccoli. The crack against the edge of the bowl, the blow through the plaster, the ripping of layers, the stark sounds of destruction echoing with the whisper of new beginnings.
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